ohio? >> absolutely. it is one of the things they're concerned about as you know section 199 which specifically is to production, including manufacturing. also concerned about depreciation, how you would handle that. but these are issues that can and should be resolved, and ultimately if you're a manufacturemanufacturer and howo have a competitive edge. i wish is visiting a major ohio manufacturer last week, and it's a company that produces globally. their top issues are corporate tax reforms. it is disadvantaging them because other companies who are domiciled in different countries have a better tax system to be able to compete with them, and the specific thing they raise with me, which i'm hearing all over all ohio, and around the country as people come to washington to talk about this, when there is an opportunity for expansion, potential

acquisition, a chinese company or brazilian company, they have an advantage over the u.s. company. so you are seeing relative to what should be happening, happening already is shrinkage of u.s. companies ability to gain new market share. and it's happening right now. one of my examples i like to use is a beer. i am a beer drinker, and just by the fact that there is no major u.s. beer maker anymore. think about. the largest their company in america is who? who would you guess? its boston brewing company. sam adams. i love sam adams. but they have 1% market share. that's the largest u.s. beer company now. all the rest are foreign owned. if you look at it and talk to the executive vice president for finance, cfo as to why, what is the point you? taxes.

you talk to folks in st. louis to the lost anheuser-busch and they will tell you this is a real do. it's happening in ohio among manufacturers. so there's a strong interest among ohio manufacturer, particularly if they compete globally but even if they don't, 35% rate is the statutory rate. you're correct, the actual taxes may be closer to 28% on average, but it's still a high rate. even at 20% they are still higher than their competitors. canada just went from 16.5, 16. that's the federal rate. that doesn't with their provincial rate. so it's a real issue for me spirit change the subject for a very important topic of tax rates and get the last question for you is, the odds of the reds winning the world series at issue. what is your view on the world

series? >> well, i'm sorry to tell the fans, the reds beat up on the nets -- nats. i'm not saying i enjoyed it. neither of them had a great game, obviously. but we won. the reds have an incredible lineup of issue. it's as good a game as i've seen since the '70s, which was the big red machine that i grew up with. we did lose ludwig, r. leftfielder, cleanup hitter, injury on opening day where i was there and i thought he's in his 30s, he shouldn't do that. but it's a real exciting team issue. great young players but a couple guys who would almost rookie of yeaofthe year last year who arew really coming into their own. and maybe the ndp again this year. this guy, a korean player, i

used to watch them with the indians. he played center field. is now going center field for the reds. he has had an awesome start. he is a good leadoff hitter. our batting average was about 220 last year, and yet we made the division last year. with everybody healthy, ludwick, great pitching staff, i like the chances. >> very good. bullish on the reds. not as bullish on the grand bargain. >> i'm hopeful -- >> let me in on a note of optimism. this town is full of cynics, and there's lots of reasons for that. washington works in a serious way sometimes, and it usually not so great to watch the process. we are all here for a reason, that still take our country successful, help give people the opportunities we've had to keep the american economy stronger i really worry that, one, we're at a point if we don't act, that is

in danger. but two, i see an opportunity. i think it's an opportunity right now. in other words, between now and the end of july when the debt limit expires, we ought to put partisanship aside, focus on what's good for the country. if we do that and look at this objectively in terms of what has to be done, we will get at the spinach problem, reform these programs so the work in the future. we will put in place tax reform that gives the economy a chance to get going again and be more competitive. it will help ensure that this injury can be america's century. i love the comments from foreigners who look at america and they say, wow, america has a lot of problems but it's one good budget agreement away from getting back on its feet, meaning if we do with this long-term problem that's at historic levels and if we get this economy moving, we can get back on her feet. and provide the opportunity we want for our kids and grandkids. so i'm not a pessimist.

i'm optimistic that we can get it done but it's going to require leadership. the president will have to step four, talk to the american people about these issues in honest ways, and work with democrats to get them to cover they need to be able to make some tough decisions. >> i would like to thank the peterson foundation for their support of this event, for all of you for coming and join today. everyone watching on the live stream, thank you so much. there will be more briefings to. senator portman, thank you so much for joining us. [applause] >> [inaudible conversations]

>> [inaudible conversations] >> finishing up this political event this money with ohio senator rob portman. by the way, if you missed any of this it will be available online any time at c-span.org. we have more live programming coming up. join us in less than one hour for hearing on funding the u.s. pacific command and forces in south korea. navy admiral will testif testifd that we live at 10 a.m. eastern on our companion network c-span. also actinic confirmation hearing for president obama's pic to be the next energy secretary.

you can see that live on c-span3. later, it will be another confirmation hearing. this one for president obama's choice to be the next white house budget director. that's at 2:30 p.m. eastern also on c-span3 today. congress is back in session today. the senate gaveling in in about 50 minutes at 10 a.m. eastern. lawmakers expected to work on judicial and other nominations. debate on gun legislation to end the house is also back today. we expect work on hydropower projects as well as legislation limiting the action of the national labors -- national labor relations board. >> you are watching seek to do with politics and public affairs. weekdays feature live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watched key public policy this. every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv.

you can see past programs and their schedules at our website, and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> the senate gaveling in again at 10 a.m. eastern we will have live coverage. right now, they'll tell chair and ceo tim armstrong and ceo tim armstrong on how media our positions are producing more online content. history marks are part of the society of american business editors and writers spring conference in washington, happened last week.

>> [inaudible conversations] >> all right. good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the 50th anniversary conference. i flew in this morning from chicago, and it feels just as cold as what i left.

i'm very privileged to introduce our keynote speaker. this is going to be kind of like a give-and-take question and answer session more than a formal speech. and we really appreciate him doing that, because i think it allows us to get a more questions and talk a little bit more about his business. i'm greg mcewan, president of cebu 2000. i'm an editor with reuters. i think that the first thing i would say about tim armstrong, ceo of aol is that he must've been overcome with a bit of instead in 2009 when he took this job. he took -- he had a brilliant career prior to that at google. and juxtaposing that a little bit, but just to quote the

famous country philosopher dolly parton -- [laughter] she once said, if you want the rainbow, you've got to put up with the rain. and so i think that that's what tim may be signed up for. i think, i say insanity because maybe some of you are familiar with the aol story. back in the day, and when i say back in the day am not more than a decade or so ago, aol was one of the names in technology that was on the lips of everyone. it peaked at 35 million subscribers in 2002, and after that it's been downhill as far as that service. of course, we have seen the industry transform with high-speed internet. we also remember the blockbuster

deal with aol buying time warner in 2000, and we know how that turned out. by 2009 aol was destined to really, or possibly oblivion. but tim stepped in and a lot is happening in the last almost four years now. he engineered spinning aol off from time warner. so we've gone full circle here with this. he aggressively moved into content acquiring the "huffington post," and we want to at least one story about area on a -- arianna huffington. and he started patch, which many of you know is a hyperlocal service. i looked on the most recent 10 10-k, and patch, the company says it has 1200 employees.

the bulk of whom are journalists. so it's very much a media company now. they are members of sabew, and we welcome that. it also has an eclectic group of brands such as tech crunch, which is a must read tech blog. and something better than almost all of us have viewed at one time or another, mapquest. is a tenure has been a race against time. can he reinvent the company fast enough to move to more than offset the decline in the traditional customers? and so we would like to hear from tim a little bit about that. he got a bit of good news at the end of last year when, for the first time in eight years, revenues increased year over year in that quarter. so that's all for this company

has declined, and now an uptick. so were fascinated to hear not only what you have to say about aol, but also, as i said, as we were talking outside, the direction of media in general. >> thanks for having me. it's nice to be here. this is one of my super passion areas. i just spent the last couple of days in d.c. in our dole's office, and i was looking forward to this event because i think this by one of the most important organizations of people in the future. and i'll talk a little bit about that. i which is going to spend two or three minutes kind of detailing what, what is happening at aol and at some point what we've invested in overall. but i was just out with the fact, my first job after college was teaching at wellesley college, edited that for a

summer program, and after that i thought i wanted to go into investment banking. i went in for about six months and realized it was not a thing for me. and i started a newspaper in boston, and i sold my car, sold my mountain bike and bought a 650 computer from apple. i learned pagemaker and pagemaker pro. i learned how to program my own set of designs on the newspaper. we did all the editorials and all the printing. i did all of the ad sales, and that was an incredible experience. over all, that was kind my introduction to content and journalism and those things, and i was really, editorial wasn't great but it was a really good learning experience. i think when you fast-forward fd today, where the internet i is n mobile and things, i stupidly fundamentally that journalism as a whole is very, very, very important concept of the future.

aol has really invested very heavily in our team. we have a really good group of people at aol who are passionate about content and brand. i would say at the top level because i get asked this question a lot, and we have a proxy battle, our company is a public company, which is, is content a good investment? a high level in today's day and age. is journalism a good investment? i believe fundamentally the answer is yes. i believe fundamentally the answer is yes that is good business, not just something for society because of the way humans are programmed come in the ways that, whether we like them or not, most human beings are constrained by themselves and by our core dna to need brands in the journal is to basically carried the world of information for them. and i think there remains a very, very big and robust

opportunity, dinner, for journalists and for journalistic organizations and journalistic brands to have a material impact on peoples lies. and by doing that you can create great businesses behind the. that's the core thesis of our content. we have other things but that's really the investment level of why we are invested in content. the second thing is just for journalists, let me dig down into that individually, one of the things i think is powerful about journalism over all is that journalists are walking networks. a lot of people who don't know about the content of journalism always asked me, you know, what is the point of having journalists when you have the world of just computer generated content and everyone can contribute overall? but with what journalists are, journalist our people basically not only are able to grow followers themselves, good

journalists grow a folding, but more important is that journalists are able to connect a network of people and ideas together in a way that a normal person and a normal life is not able to do. i think that's a really powerful part. there's a network of journalism that doesn't get written about and doesn't get talked about but i think it's a really powerful underlying premise of what journalists and journalism is really important. so there's a science to journalism that doesn't get discussed publicly at least i think about a lot. i think our people think about a lot, which is how do you unleash the power of that network and broader and broader and broader ways overall? and i think that's important. just add a historical level, you know, one of the things i've done over the years a just and less for our five years is read a lot just about the history of journalism. there's certain aspects of the history that happen. i think one of what happened in your city, there were more

newspapers and more information than what the population could sort of sustained i guess at the time. and what you saw was very creative content people, basically in an open, wide open playing field competitor almost we have on the internet today, iterate very, very quickly to make their publications and their journalists or attracted to the world. and i think, you know, you look at what hirst did, from severus is continuing and also when he bought -- i think we're in that type of an era right now as a business and never described business as an audience developing business versus an audience sustainment business. at a simple level what that means is journalists and journalistic brands and

companies need to innovate very, very, very quickly constantly, because really what's happened is addition to just change and every time the media distribution changes, you have to figure it very quickly what type of content the what type of program, what type of journalism is going to fit in that new distribution curve the best. although there's been a lot of noise in the content, i think it's also a significant opportunity for the companies that really, really want to innovate inside of the. that's where i think there's opportunity. then i will finish by saying, you know, the power of journalistic brand is something that's kind of in in dna in humans. some of our folks from tech crunchers commune economy there is -- the "huffington post" has this, the patch has this. human beings really want to basically relied on brands to

help them get through their lives, even when you look at the most sophisticated internet platforms. mobile platform, what you find is on twitter more people are falling journalistic brands. on facebook the number two thing done is content sharing. e-mail typically is the number two thing on e-mail is content sharing but a lot of those actual is the power of brands. the "huffington post" i think just got rated the number one shared brand on facebook. the reason is because the "huffington post" doesn't unbelievably great job of curating omnicom interesting and curating society is something that human beings really want. if i had one thing i think possibly part of this is because of the really public challenges. i don't think people should be afraid to invest in content. i think you have to be willing to take a long-term view of what that value is, but that's why in

here today. that's what our company has really been, we've done a very good job at it i think overall, and we have a lot more. eight innings placentia the game will be be tied so we'll go to extra innings. but it's nice to be your. >> well, speaking of investing in content, i think there's a lot of interest in this group and patch. there's been a huge amount of discussion over the last few years about hyperlocal, that's the way to go in journalism. i believe that aol has said that they're going to stick with it, to the end of the year at least, but you want to see breakeven by then. so what's the outlook for patch? i mean you fired hundreds of journalists. what do you think -- you have hired hundreds of journalists. >> we are heading in that direction quickly. what we would like to do is

sustain patch, keep it running with the journalistic if anything what we've been doing with the model is keeping the journalist in place and tr try o figure out businesswise how to add more revenue and reduce more costs around the bases and tried to get it to break even. you have an audience that is in an area that cares about where they are. kids go to school there. they own a home there. the largest investment a city where the art. the markets have seen a receding about of local information over time because as more traditional media have struggle to make those investments, but the reality is the audience is still there. the audience cares about -- i would argue the fact of the matter is, patch, without

patching accounts, we didn't do any marketing. we didn't make people go to patch. patch has gotten tremendous penetration in a lot of the towns we are in. so from the standpoint of a hyperlocal audience where vast majority of the commerce that people do within, probably 10 or 50-mile radius of the house, there's probably 70% of internet users use less than 15 sites a month. it's likely that within that spectrum of sites, local information is one of those things that's really important to i think the long investment and patch, patch, we have hired about 1000 journalists, and i would say, i live in a patch to the i know the editor of the patch really well. if you travel around with a patch editor in these towns, the impact they have on the town is

tremendous. during the sandy storm for instance, there were 329 towns that get hit by sandy that were patched towns. most of the people in those towns got their information from patch. whether or not you like the idea or don't like the idea of patch, the fact that aol has taken the risk to really put very contrived a very good information in local towns and scale i think has been helpful to those communities. and our business patch has good tens of noise on wall street. the only noise were trying to great in the visit is to help human things locally. from the standpoint patch has done a remarkable job over all. with more work to do but i think -- >> you mentioned you need to get costs a little more in line. how do you -- the old age problem, how do you make money off of it? >> the average patch town runs under $150,000. the media market in the patch

towns doesn't support other forms of media generally, eight to 20, $25 million, just add market. if you strip out houses and auto, it's about 350 million of disposable cash floating around. in our model, running patch profitably on a part-time basis since it comes down to whether not the cost structure thought of one or 50,000, probably lower, you know, can we run a commercial model around it which makes sense to be able to monetize it at that level? i think the answer is yes. and i think we're towns would answer is definitely yes. and what would like to do is get all the towns to run that way. we have a number of profitable towns to the real thing about a profitable town is, h we have te content level and engagement

level? the have advertising sales model and a salesperson there he was been there for a while and can work it out? there's other things we're looking at in the future which are more higher forms of monetization that is possible with different types of products and services. we have a new patch that just rolled out yesterday actually in 40 towns across the u.s. that model is journalism, more interaction in the committee, and we have to have add models also which are differentiated from patch now. i think we're taking a pretty thoughtful approach to it over all. i think patch has been an investment that's a long-term investment, an environment where investors and really around aol turnaround as a short-term, you know, mentality.

it's the standpoint we're trying to do something really big and really bold in a space where most of the people have given up on content. you know, we are believers in content and brand so i think that were is where patch fits in. >> so that's your way of saying you're going to pull the plug? >> sorry but just so we're clear, you know, the plan has never been to pull the plug. when you said to get to profitability -- >> or getaway partner i believe spinning our job i think is to keep patch going in the committee's profitably. so i think the press writes a lot about patch them was going to happen, things that are very passionate our job is to try to keep, you know, 14 million i guess on comscore, million people on patch come into we see over 20 million people on patch better all hyperlocal. our job is to keep those

consumers happy, build the business model around and we're working very diligently on that. just be clear, the plan has never been to pull the whole plug on patch. >> all right. let's do it open to the audience. if you could, please, if you could go to one of the microphones, say your name and your affiliation. spend nice to meet you. my name is jonathan. skeptical question. warren buffett goes out and buys local newspapers, makes quite a bit of money. i'm doing a calm right now on a paper -- they do 9000, they have seven collins, three pages, full columns. it's a beautiful publication. the guy crested in his chart. the most marvelous operation. how come this isn't working for patch very will? >> so, just to be clear about it, i think when he said it's not working for patch, i think

that's the media equation of what's not working around patch. i think what you've seen is, i bet if you are back and look at the startup of that publication in maine and i want it took them to build up to the 9000 circulation and the revenue models behind, my guess is it took a bit of time. it probably didn't happen overnight. so the towns in patch that are profitable, my guess is would probably have towns that look like that town in maine, but it's not all the patches. and aggregate level, look at patch is a they're still investing more in patch at a microlevel, my guess is we have some patches that are similar to what you're describing in maine. number one i think, warren buffett investing in local newspapers is the same reason that we are investing in local community news is important the people don't move, and there's a lot of commerce transacted there in general.

but also just say if you're comparing one newspaper to one patch, you actually may find similar attributes to those two things but at a macro level we are still investing more than we are making. so in essence the investment is costing more than what we're getting a revenue. but on a per patch basis -- >> one quick follow. the larger point is, is there an ointment for scale, to be blunt? what do they need aol for rex if he's a guy who lives in maine by himself, he can open his own website. you are a great guy but what does aol to? >> we are essentially funding entrepreneurs. if you look at the patch model in general we have, if it's one guy in maine, i don't know what town. spent the most beautiful newspaper you have ever seen. seven columns. in the modern age. it's on a new standard everybody

in the city advertised in a. the most remarkable story. when you look at what you guys are going locally, it's like what's the difference? >> i think we're doing the same thing actually. so if you think about what aol has done, i a while has essentially put 900 of those entrepreneurs and all these towns around the u.s. we're taking the same model. just to explain it may be one level of detail is, when you think about patch, the investment we're making, we are making an investment in one single platform that's used nationally. if you diversify the cost, you get divided by 900, number one pick number two is you get to put one person in the town. there's towns that were in there were probably competing with people in other media forms that have 10, 15, 20 people working there. most cases we have one. >> [inaudible] >> what we're trying to do is replicate the story you just

told him that one down. >> thank you. >> thank you, jonathan. myron? >> my ring, formerly of cnn. the "huffington post" got a lot of criticism for not paying its contributors. a lot of people in this room are not on regular paychecks, and depend on their freelance income. not one, what is your feeling about that? and can you give us any hard figures on how much of "huffington post" content is paid for these days of? >> so, one is, you know, probably on the internet space whereupon the single highest pair of journalists overall. from a standpoint of what companies invested more in journalism, i think we're probably it. and number two is i would say from the "huffington post" perspective, the "huffington post" basically employs a lot of journalists for expanding globally now so not just the

u.s. but in multiple other countries. and the piece of the "huffington post," which i'm taking from your question probably the air that you're trying to get at is the blocking platform for the tournament basically has allowed a lot of people, and patch has a blogging platform also, and some of ou her other sites do as wel. so basically, right ideas for free on everything from that standpoint, from and empower -- empowerment standpoint, plus getting other people the opportunity to write in those spaces, i don't know how many journalists are writing on the "huffington post" from a blogging standpoint but i know there's one influential people around the world writing on the "huffington post" overall, but i'm not sure if the question is aimed at what our -- by the probably investment online.

if you like the blogging platform, if you don't think we should a blog is pretty you look at almost every form of social media, people who we pay write another people's platforms, square, facebook, everything. i think that's the way the world is. >> so you are not concerned that those bloggers that do it to get their names out or vent their feelings, did not interfere with the work, with the opportunities for real journalists? >> no. because i think from a real journalism perspective, if you're a journalist and you're a freelance journalist, you have a choice to be a freelance or not be a freelancer. from our standpoint our model has been to hire full-time journalists and in this very, very heavy and journalism. very heavily. and i think there's a tremendous amount of publications across the world and live actually a freelance journalist freelance journalist. so i think picking the "huffington post" platform out as one example or patch or any

of the other things we do, you know, i think that's kind of a stopping force for where the world is today. what i talked about with the dissipation change in general is journalists and journalistic brands, the number one thing we believe that people should be doing is innovating as quickly as possible but i think from that standpoint, i could almost bet every journalist in this room has twitter, facebook, all those other things. and so i think from a standpoint if you take a journalist and i took a snapshot of everything a journalist interacts with right now, and they're probably getting paid by freelance, by some of the publication. my guess is they're putting tons of the content out across all bunch of free media types. notches on things like the "huffington post." that's the way the world. >> now that the "huffington post" has come up, is this an appropriate time to tell us a arianna story? >> well, i think, one thing i

would say about arianna what you don't think people realize, i think one is, arianna happens to be a real public figure. i think one of the largest content properties on the web. is also probably the hardest working person i know. and i think one of the things, is arianna really kind of plug-in day-to-day? because i see on tv. i see her all over the place, but my guess is, you know, e-mails sent per person and e-mails received per person, she's probably got the highest ratio on the planet. and i think one of the things that people underestimate about arianna is, she's very, very, very good at what she does. from that standpoint the "huffington post" has gotten a lot of, over the years, has gotten a lot of challenges from an upstart to where it is today. you tell me a female entrepreneur who sold the company for hundreds of millions

of dollars, who has a pulitzer prize, launched i think the most aggressive new media format, the "huffington post" lives last year, and has done whole bunch of other things around cause related stuff. she jus just a huge thing with goldman sachs this week and gary cohen in new york around all bunch of initiatives for women entrepreneurs. i think it's easy to do the stories on arianna. the real story on arianna from issues that are committed job of being a tremendous businessperson. i think, i mean, that's the best story about her i think spanky was answering e-mails from her as we walked in. >> back to patch for a moment. what makes the ideal our most successful for patch count? if i'm understanding correctly, you're looking at all the account you currently have. some of them may lose touch. will what makes the ideal most

successful patch town? what ingredients you need to have? >> there is 59 variables we look at when we consider patch towns. so it's everything from the tax information, school information, how good the schools are. there's a whole suite of things about how engaged the community is in general. so we look at about 59 variables. what we did is up front rank all the towns in the united states. started with all the towns and rank them. what we are focused on i would say is engagement. there's communities in the country that have very, very, very high, you know, engagement levels. even though we have some patches them one full-time person was there writing about things, you can have tens of people around patch who essentially are putting up events, advertising, those things. i think the biggest thing we look for is how vibrant the market is now vibrant the community is over all.

the places where we haven't put patch, to give the opposite side, are places where we think patch won't have an impact. over all, if it could be the size the communities to become to many different outlets. but in general we've tried to choose important towns that have important engagements that have an open opportunity to really latch on to the patch platform. >> mark. >> mark, formally of "forbes" magazine. i now teach journalism as an executive resident at the paul university. and i wanted to shift the discussion is a good all of the and talk also that about maybe not journalism and revenue, which i know you're interested in. the metrics i've seen say that when you move from print to digital that you get about 10 cents compared to a dollar for print. that maybe different in your

case, but how are we ever going to come or maybe we are not, going to recapture all that lost revenue? because everyone on the print side is saying, oh, only if we could dot dot dot. what is it, scale? is a because right now the web is, there's so much inventory and there's somebody places to advertise, there's no pricing power. so what will change the dynamic? with the consolidation? will it be the next great thing? offer us some inside and possibly even some encouragement so we don't have to go out and get -- spent three dynamics. one dynamic is basically have the brands and content translated to digital in an effective way from a traditional, non-nontraditional format. by the way, forbes is a great

example. i don't know if forbes usage numbers and revenue off the top of a hit but i think have like 60 million users on forbes.com now. if you look at the growth it's been pretty tremendous. i think they've done a good job of integrating the good content model as a traditional publication. so my guess is total usage of forbes brand has probably gone up over time, and i'm guessing the revenue, i don't know so i don't know what the raven is so my guess is they are probably happy. >> they are private. they are owned by elevation partners. >> so the one thing is, the question is, are you getting times for dollars because you haven't really transition your business all the way to being digital? what any by transitioning all the way, do you have a digital salesforce? you have a digital management team? to you have a digital targeting team? to use all the data to sell -- i grew up in the print world,

selling and the digital world and getting a dollar versus 10 cents comes down to about five or 10 things you have to do really well. i think there are cases where countries have not translated into the world well. that's never one. number two is, you know, a lot of the money hasn't come into the world yet in this area. and i think that one of the things that's grown, all of traditional publications are starting to be more of is video. the reality is most of the $4 billion in the view that is coming major areas online have come from more from digital displays that it is come from off-line either video or print initiatives overall. i think there's a huge amount of money that's going to come online. and i think, going back to my first point is, if you are granting off-line world, translating to it really understand how to make a dollar in digital is really, really important. and the third thing, which i think is absolutely critical, is

the cost structure. i will be totally blunt about this. i won't be popular in this room. if people are coming from more traditional places, but in my grid i've looked at buying traditional companies, and if you're at a traditional company that's got massive union costs, massive education costs, all those other things and you haven't thought about how those things translate to the digital world, you know, people may look at it and say you're getting off-line dollar and 10 cents digitally. the issue is your off-line dollar on a marginal basis, the cost structure within that dollar may not be supported in the overall area. again, i think patch has been a big topic here, but if you look at what we did at patch we said let's have the absolute lowest cost structure while we're still investing in journalism in a tent but how do we get the town cost to be as low as possible

and still invest? >> but shouldn't a digital by its very nature have a much lower cost structure? and by its very nature be much more profitable than print? did another plane coming to have equipment. you don't have distribution. so you guys should be making a lot of money. is it a scale problem? >> in our case we've gone out to 900 towns. the early towns, a lot of the early towns have been problem. is as you get going out. the reality is, and again this is a timeframe thing, if you told me 10 years from now that they're worth profitable digitally run publications or whatever format you want to say like in local or online at scale, there will be. so the challenge is, if you are right now thinking that you have to translate another day into this new model with the same margin, there's a lot of profitable content properties

online. and the delegates run also in the industry about what's not profitable but if you look a what is profitable, there's a fair amount of companies making money spent what will be, the one follow-up. what will be the faction for? three years, fighters, 10 years? what time horizon are we talking about? >> i don't know. i think will be one of those things where you wake up and it will happen. i don't mean wakeup, but what you're seeing happen today you're starting to see more and more and more and more as things translate into the new economics, economy. i think it's not going to take 10 years. i think in 10 years you of a vibrant, and my guess is it's two to five years. >> thank you. >> i'd like to ask a couple of questions that were submitted. one little offbeat. what advice do you have for marissa as she takes over the office? >> i've been good friends with

marissa for a decade, and marissa is one of our -- we just put a big investment in content around program we did with pbs. we've interviewed about 200 women that we think are the biggest leaders in the world, and in the u.s. pick it will eventually go global, marissa is one of them. i don't give other people advice on what to do and how to run a company. i think having gone through aol's turnaround and continue to work on. i think every situation is different. i think she's very smart and very good at what she does. i wouldn't offer of any -- >> so you would let people work from home? >> what? we have a thousand people at patch who work from home. so i am pro-home. >> one more. aol was once ubiquitous that you've got mail was a movie starring tom hanks and meg ryan. that went away like the dodo

bird. do you dream of getting that back? >> socom one thing i would just say is, you know, with still attends events the people who use aol mail. with aol mail. we attended as a people who use the homepage. i think aol is one of the most important brands of our time period. if you think about what aol did for the world, aol took something that was not very usable from a human perspective, put a human interface on it, scaled it out to the world. when i travel around passionate where aol has had brain issues has been a journalist space, the immediate space and the technology space, and a 99% of that has been related to the time warner merger. when i go out and i travel around a lot consumers can people do use aol, they love it. my guess is the amount of brand power that aol has over a longer time, that we will be able to

resurrect. i do know if we'll be able to get back to the point where people are making moody's about it, but i think, i am pro aol, i am pro-to a well pro-to a well bred and i think it's one of the most powerful brands on the planet. it needs work. >> how can you do that the with the perception being that it's older people -- the. >> people with money? [laughter] you know, i joke about that but aol has got probably one of the best performing audiences online for people who are engaged, people engage with advertising, engage with content. a funny thing happens, when you get married and have kids. suddenly there's an important set of things that happen in life that you would look for brands, companies that will stay with you and be really stable. i think aol is the type of brand, type of country that gets tremendous trust from consumers. i think we have consumers

average age on aol is 38. i don't know, if you don't like 38 rule, i'm sorry. i will get you some 18-year-olds. from what i said in our standpoint of what we are investing in, if you look at brands like gadget and tech crunch and "huffington post" and aol, mapquest, patch, with some of the best brands on the planet, some of the best consumers on the planet. and all of that is fueled by aol. i would expect in the next 10 years for the aol brand to really be meaningful for consumers again. we are supporting these other brands but i guess consumers will be using aol. >> okay. sorry, i don't remember speed is on charlie, the cofounder and executive editor of "global post." i wanted to ask about the strategy international, business perspective but also editorial perspective. how do you intend to build out sort of global network that you

want to build? and specifically, there are great challenges. i'm wondering if you could sort of walk through what you're thinking about with them, specifically language. is this audience development for english-speaking people around the world to connect? or are you trying to actually take it to the next level, and are you going to take on that enormous task of translation to different languages? and just businesswise also, sort of the ad supported model international, how you are thinking that your. >> sure. were just talking up front. i was e-mailing with arianna about the stuff we're doing internationally. our premise has been important market, english first, english first has now turned into doing in market language overall. so we just started france, a couple others that we are working on, spain is up but a few others that would be coming out. and from that standpoint, we

believe it's important to have a platform there and for it to be localized overall. there also happens to be, another example, when a new pope got announced, for instance, the "huffington post" was one of the only people that is intensely that basically real-time work going on in english, italian, and all the other countries and languages we're serving with reaction to it was interesting to watch it i think that's a big opportunity to have cross platforms but i know from your company we've talked in the past, i think investment and the work you're doing is significant because when you think about what's important in the world, the internet has definitely brought down the global barriers more general, the content companies because they were constrained by the barriers have not had that same opportunity to go across the country as much as they possibly could but we see

this as unique period of time to actually expand brands globally. a good example also, if you go internationally and traveled almost any country in the world, people read tech crunch come reading gadget. there's natural demand there that we have to fill. so i think you'll see us expand our brand but you see is also partner. we've taken a huge partner strategy both in the u.s. and globally pics i think that's kind of the plan. so we are looking at important markets where we can have an impact and would like to localized language all the time. >> thank you. >> hi. lex stares from cnn money. you said before that you are willing to be blunt about cost structure in the digital newsrooms, and you started to mention labor costs when you talk about things. and you elaborate on wage pressures and labor costs in digital journalism? >> yes, so i think, one is, i don't know the exact details of

the labor costs and all the off-line world and businesses. from a digital perspective, you know, i think the cost pressure, you know, for us is to invest as broadly as we can in content, at a rate where, from a total wage perspective, we are able to do it profitably. i think one of the things that i think we have seen, which is great i think for journalists, is that, you know, done correctly we can invest in wages on a journalism side that actually i think our good for journalists and good for the company over all. and from the cost structure perspective, one of the things that's helpful for us and you sofronas is the flexibility peace basically being able to shift content and point different journalists at different areas over time. just from a limited amount of stuff that looked at in the

past, the question is not just a cost question. it's also what is the flexibly, what is a journalist allowed to do? my guess is from a cost perspective, a journalist wages are not that similar overall. and so the cost structure from some of the more constrained things may require people to be more flexible in the future. the average cost for journalists is probably not that different off-line for it is online. >> i think i read somewhere that you pay around 50,000. is that a good average? >> we pay all over the place. i don't know what the averages. spent was your question because you think the cost structures are different? >> you said you would be blunt him as i wanted you to elaborate more on it and not just where we are now for similar online versus off-line but where it is going.

>> you know, i think pay for journalists overall probably somewhat even online and off-line over all. and my guess is, in a world where brands are going to get more important, journalism would get more important. i have it every issued thought about this than most of the world, which is i think journalistic brands and journalist themselves are important and they would get paid. i think there's going to be a whole bunch of other platforms that allow journalists or people who want to write new content just like there is today all over the place, but from a journalist's perspective, career wise and long-term as an industry, it's not something i worry about. the area that looked out to just be more direct about it, i looked at an off-line publication, this is years ago, where i was told and we didn't into doing anything with them, i was told journalists could not write online. and when i said, what? they said that's the end their

union contract. and so if we had done a deal with that publication, we would've had to have off-line journalists and hired a summer suite of online journalists. and that's what it meant by the cost structure. if the manitoba all the journalist could've written online, no issues and every would write were ever wanted into a, ipod would've said this would've been a good deal. >> i think with time for maybe two more. >> i am from china and the intern with the washington business journal. my question is, because i think aol is pretty much, has a better financial performance this last year, and your income increased for the first time in the past eight years. so what is your comment on this performance? and what your personal definition for a real comeback of aol? >> so you know, i think the real comeback of aol will be when aol

is profitably growing at industry rates over a long period of time. the company which i think was in a lot of trouble, and i think we improved the company pretty dramatically, but i think from what we said today to wear think they should be i think we're just getting started. if you look at aol five years in the future of whatever time period, i hope aol is growing on a global basis, you know, at industry rates both from the rabbit or profitability, or hopefully above those pics i think really getting back to growth, as a come definitely important and huge milestone most people never expected us to get to, but i think it undersurface to think that we are at a success metric right now. >> we will leave this discussion here. you can see all of our coverage of the american business editors and writers conference in the c-span video library. go to c-span.org.

live now to the senate floor lawmakers today will begin with the general speeches. at 11:30 a.m. they will consider a judicial nomination with a vote on that set for noon eastern. the senate will recess for their weekly party lunches from 12:30-2:15 eastern. and when they returned they could take up gun control legislation. now live coverage of the u.s. senate here on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. lord of all, thank you for being america's strong defense across the seasons of its existence. thank you also for your forgiving grace that restores us in spite of our mistakes and failures. today, give our senators a

renewed sense of your purpose so that they will stay within the circle of your will. may they discharge their duties with the joyful focus of living worthy of your great name. lord, help them to trust you to care for our nation, to look to you for guidance, and to remember that nothing can separate us from your love. we pray in your sacred name. amen. the president pro tempore: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands,

one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the president pro tempore: the majority leader. mr. reid: i now move to proceed to s. 639. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar number 42, a bill to ensure that all americans that should be prohibited from buying a firearm are listed in the national instant background check system and so forth and for other purposes. mr. reid:man, the time until 11:30 today will be equally divided between the majority and the minority. the democrats will control the first 30 minutes, the republicans the final 30 minutes. at 11:30 the senate will proceed

to executive session to consider the nomination of patty swartz tshwartzto be a judge for the td circuit. the senate will resume from 12:30 to 2:15 to allow for our weekly caucus meetings. i would first extend my congratulations to senator mcconnell and the louisville cardinals for their successful ncaa championship. it was a remarkable -- it was remarkable how they were always coming from behind to wind up winning. they did it with not offense but with defense. i was very, very impressed with the team but, most of all, impressed with their coach, rick patino, but rick patino on yesterday was also selected with jerry tarkenian to be members of the basketball hau hall of fame.

they deserve that both of them smed i would say, mr. president, that in addition to congratulating my friend, senator mcconnell, also it's important to recognize my deputy chief of staff, dave mccallum, who is a rabid louisville fan. when i went down to participate in a program that senator mcconnell set up by -- i took david mccallum with me and he loves those louisville cardinals. today he has more reason to like them. and tonight even more reason because in the championship tonight at the university of connecticut playing the louisville cardinals for the women's championship. so, mr. president, i'm very mindful of how strongly senator mcconnell feels about his louisville cardinals. mr. mcconnell: will the majority leader yield for an

observation? mr. reid: i'm not going to get into the politics of sports in kentucky because i don't understand them. mr. mcconnell: one of the things we enjoy talking about is sports, and he is a big unlv fan as well. and i would just report to my friend through the chair that it was a fun evening, absolutely exciting to be there, and i was also grateful to you for coming down to the university of louisville a few years ago, and it was -- i was glad i had a chance to be there and and to see it in person. basketball in a football facility is a little ode. -- is a little ode odd. i am not sure people up in the top even saw the players. but we were a little closer to the floor and it was a wonderful experience. thank you for your comments. mr. reid: mr. president, i mentioned the hall of fame -- basketball hall of fame.

jerry tarkanian made it into the hall of fame. why didn't he get in earlier? because this courageous man took on the ncaa, which has absolute control over college athletes. i would hope as the years go by that we as a congress will take a look at that more closely. but i don't want to move away from the important day it is in jerry tarkanian's life. jerry is now over 80. he doesn't get around like he used to. he doesn't chew on the towels like he's famous for. but here is a man who was held out of the hall of fame for far too long. he has more than an 80% winning record, a very fine, fine man with a good family. his wife is a member of the las vegas city council. he brought such excitement to las vegas.

he coached the running rebels into four final fours, huang the -- won the championship twice. some things came up that he no longer was able to coach at unlv, but i admire him as a person and send my congratulations to all of those runninrunning rebel fans today. but remember, finally, he took an ncaa, and he won. he won a large money judgment against them as a result of how they treated him. it was so unfairly and his players. there are people throughout the state of nevada who played for him who are now successful business people, teaching professions around the state, just doing old kind all kinds od things because of jerry tar yankian and the team he had,

monly his wife, she was so good with those young men who came to unlv. speefs she was a speech therapi. she understood how much these young men cared about her as much as jerry. like most americans, i believe the second amendment guarantees the right to bear arms. as a young boy 12 years old, on moi birthday, i got a gun. but it wasn't some little pee shooter. it was a blueprinter bust. a 12-gauge shotgun. boy that's a big gun. i still have it. it is a beautiful gun. my parents sent away for the sears catalog for that present for me. that gun was a real extravagance for them. it cost $28 but oh, did i have fun with it. a great big gun that was bigger than meevment an me. and it kicked so much. but i could handle it.

the shells were expensive. like most americans i also believe the right to bear arms must be balanced with the right of all little boys and girls in this country, whether they live iin inner city chicago or sleepy new town, connecticut, they deserve the right to grow up. the vast majority of gun owners are good, responsible people who love target shooting and hounding, want to protect their homes and families. but, mr. president, we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to keep guns out of the hands of convicted criminals and those who suffer from mental illnesses and make them a danger to themselves and others. we understand that now more than ever with the terrible slaughters in you a roar a, colorado, and new town, connecticut. we have a responsibility as a body to safeguard our most vulnerable and precious resource

-- our kids, children, babies. and the terrible tragedy at new town was a wake-up call. mr. president, we are really failing. we need to do more. newtown will always remember those little boyce and girls. some of them shot multiple times, little children, 5-year-old kids, 6-year-old children. now the name -- they're just names to us, but to the people of newtown, olivia isn't just a name. olivia is a little girl that had family that loved her and they knew -- it is a little town, relatively speaking. noah, jack ... we have a responsibility to

safeguard these little kids and unless we do something more than what's the law today, we have failed. it's long past time for a thoughtful examination of the lax laws and culture of violence that put newtown and auror averages oak creek, and carson city, nevada, on the map for such a devastating reason. i only hope my republican colleagues will allow us to have that conversation. mr. president, i hope republicans will stop trying to shut down debate, start engaging on the tough issues we were sent to washington to tackle. mr. president, there has been a hugh anhugh andhue and cry in t. people say, let's have regular order, regular order. let's have amendments. so i was relatively kind of stunned when i got a letter during our break from 13

republican senators. they're the same senators who yell and scream the most about regular order and amendments. but in this letter to me, short, direct to the point, saying you're going to have no ability to go to gun legislation because we're going to stop it. we don't think there should be a discussion, a debate on guns. now, mr. president, how would i describe these 13 senators who sent me this letter? i want to do this respectfully, because they have a right to their opinions, even if they're illogical, and even if they're speaking out of both side sidesf their mouth. what does that mean, speaking out of both sides of their mouth? it is very, very succinct what it means. it means that -- and this is described as a verb, looking it up on the internet -- to say differ things tdifferent thingst

people about the same subject. that's what they have done. they have been yelling and screaming, we want regular order much the other night when we were doing the budget, it went on until 5:30 in the morning, one senator said we want to offer all the amendments that we want to offer. no one has the right to stop us from offering amendments. so that's what we did. but today he feels differently. today he is saying difference things to different people on the subject. mr. president, a former republican congressman from florida is now a talk show host. he has a program called "morning joe." here's what "morning joe" is reported as having said: "scarborough tears into g.o.p. filibuster on gun bill and says,

'is anybody awake in my party? '" end of quote. here's what he said. "with 29% of americans supporting background checks, scarborough noted that it's really hard to figure out what the political calculation is. it's a 90-10 issue that involves the massacre of 20 children. is anybody awake in my party on the hill? goings" close quote. that's what joe score bore row said. as president obama has said, it is impossible to prevent every sense lings tragedy. but we owe it to our children to at least try. mr. president, it's only common sense that felons who couldn't pass a background check in a gun store shouldn't be able to walk into a gun show and buy a deadly weapon. this is not hyperbole.

40% of the guns sold in the united states each year include many used to commit crimes and are sold legally at gun shows or through private sales without even the most basic background check. three years ago, one of those guns, a shotgun, purchased legally without a background check during a 2008 gun show in kingman, arizona, about 90 miles from las vegas, was used to devastate the largest courthouse we have in nevada, brand-new, lloyd b. george federal courthouse in las vegas. and it happened just as prospective jurors were arriving for the day. this man walked in and started shooting. he blasted every place that only a shotgun can do. he killed stanley cooper of sandy valley, who was a security guard. he was killed instantly. this hail of buckshot going

around the courthouse. he ran after his gun became empty to reload, he was eventually killed. that is, the man that caused all this carnage. but stanley cooper, this good man who was there, left behind a brother, four sons, seven grandchildren, two great grandchildren. he loved to spend time with his grandchildren, and great grandchildren. he loved horses and spending time outdoors, that's why he lived in sandy valley. he was no stranger to guns. he spent 26 years serving his community as a las vegas metropolitan police officer. the man who shot him, on the other hand, was a convicted felon with no right to carry a firearm. he certainly scroont passed a criminal background check but the shooter never had to get one. he just went to one of these gun shows and bought this shotgun. same basic shopping i got when i

was a 12-year-old. requiring a background check every time a gun is sold is common sense. mr. president, a brand-new member of the nevada state legislator, i -- legislature, i was a kid but sheriff lamm, the sheriff of clarke county at the time, dennis quaid is playing ralph lamb, he came to me and he said i need to do something because we have -- we need people to wait a while before they purchase a handgun. i went to the legislature not really understanding the process totally but i introduced legislation that passed and became the law. that in nevada if you purchase a handgun you have to wait three days to pick it up. that alone has saved the lives of many people. sometimes people in a fit of passion will purchase the

handgun to do bad things with it. mr. president, even as my dad did, kill themselves. waiting a few days helps. requiring a simple background check every time a gun is sold is common sense. now, we're not asking for a three-day waiting period. we have technology now that doesn't take that long. but, mr. president, it's common sense, that's why more than 90% of americans including the vast majority of gun owners, the majority of people who belong to the n.r.a., support our proposal to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and those with mental illnesses. that's what universal background check, that's what it's all about. this legislation would also crack down on anyone who buys a gun as part of a scheme to funnel it to criminals, reducing violent crime and protecting police officers.

the three things in this bill that's now before this body were reported out of the judiciary committee led by pat leahy. if anyone thinks that pat leahy is a wimp on guns, they've got another thought coming. he's from the state of vermont. he boasts about a gun he has, he has a 50 caliber gun. i don't know why he wants one but he's got one. he is a man who loves to shoot his guns. so this bill is reported out of the judiciary committee led by one of the people who knows about as much about guns as many people in this body and more, i should say. this bill that came out of that committee gives schools across doesn't the resources to improve security and keep kids safe, it's called school safety. it's got federal trafficking in it. this legislation won't prevent every crime especially those awful crimes, and background collection won't keep the guns out of the hands of every

violent madman. we all know that but we owe it to the american people to act if there is a chance to save even one life whether that life belongs to a great grandfather like sthanl cooper or these babies who barely began to live. in newtown, connecticut. mr. president, they deserve a vote. mr. mcconnell: mr. president,? the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: : i'm going to take another opportunity to congratulate the louisville cardinals for an incredible championship win last night. it was a truly exciting game and i know my colleagues from michigan take great pride in the fact that not just one but two of their schools were in the sweet 16. but, you know, we americans, we really love a story about

somebody getting knocked down and picking themselves up again. that's why it was such a great moment to see kevin ware cut the net last night. they had to lower the rim a bit as i'm sure it's difficult to climb a ladder with a cast on your right leg, but let me just say to him and to the entire university of louisville my undergraduate alma mater, well done, you've really made our state proud. now today, mr. president, i planned to talk about the the president's budget but first i want to say woord about margaret thatcher. margaret thatcher was one of the most transformative political figures of the 20th century. she was a revolutionary. really a tireless tribune for what she called popular capitalism.

her crusade to enfranchise the many, that thatcher's methods we razor sharp wit and the force of her will. which had toughened through decades of literally plowing through obstacles. a woman of humble beginnings, she charged head first against a cross-partisan ruling class that had become calcified in office. an elite clique that had grown impotent to the face of postwar economic challenges that have long since grained draind the vitality from western democracies that never had a leader like her. the starched dukes and face less union men who traditionally alternated the reins of british power sneered at that woman as they called her. the grocer's daughter. who knew nothing of their ways,

whose middle-class instincts were unsuited to the business of governing. and yet she outmaneuvered them all. when margaret thatcher finally wrested the keys of office from those who made peace with britain's decline in a way she never could and never would, she said in -- set in motion a whirlwind of reforms. none. those were easy. the vested interests opposed her every move but in the teeth of fierce opposition she ignited what can be described as a political and economic earthquake. one with a tide of global reverb braitions. the kind of policies and ideas she inspired saw dictatorships and entrenched bureaucracy come crashing down. grinding poverty lose its grip and the fossils of socialism recede into the surf, and in the wake of this wave of reform

stood freer people with a greater say over their own lives and greater hope for the future. that, mr. president, is margaret thatcher's legacy. and in some ways, the parallels to our own day are hard to escape. when margaret thatcher took office, britain was gripped by wrenching economic turmoil, tower moil of a somewhat different kind than but not entirely dissimilar to our own. but through unbending confidence in the power of free markets and in the power of free people, to order their lives more intelligently than centralized elites, she literally turned the tide. and so we mourn her passing. but we still have much to learn from her courage and example. because in the years ahead we'll need to draw from it as conservatives look to turn the tide here in the u.s. and to set

about a renewal of our own. on another matter, tomorrow the president is set to unveil his budget, the details of his plan for america's future. is it going to be a visionary blueprint that focuses on growing the economy instead of the government? a budget that can help rather than continue to hurt job creation? is it going to be a budget that balances ten years from now? 20 years from now? ever? is it going to be a reformist document that makes bold choices , will he finally drop the tax hike fanaticism that is, frankly, starting to end the realm of the absurd. from what we've heard so far, the prospects don't look that great. we hear the dismat democratic budget just like the senate

democratic budget, it will never balance, ever. we hear it contains only about $600 billion or less in deficit savings over ten years, which is roughly the level of the deficit in the first six months of this fiscal year. we hear it contains new spending proposals and does little to address the drivers of our debt. we hear it contains a tax hike upon tax hike upon tax hike and, in fact, all of the deficit reduction i just mentioned would be derived from myriad tax increases rather than spending reductions. so apart from reports of a modest entitlement change and we'll need 0 to see the inteals on -- israelis on that, it sounds -- the details on that, it sounds like the white house tossed last year's budget in the microwave. this budget is already two months late so i sincerely hope that it is not the case, that it's just a warmed-over version

of last year. because if it is, what a colossal waste of time and what a disappointment. the american people really deserve loot better than that. and in a statement released yesterday president obama said margaret thatcher taught us we are not simply carried along by the currents of history, that we can shape them with moral conviction, unyielding courage and iron will. what i'm saying this morning is that this is your moment to do just that, mr. president. your moment. lady thatcher did not save her country from the abyss by taking half measures or tiptoeing around special interest groups. she pushed through groundbreaking reform usually under heavy fire from all sides and often over the objections of powerful leaders in or her own party and cabinet. had she governed by opinion poll

i'm sure she would have been more popular while in office and britain never would have recovered from abysmal state in which she found it. so, mr. president, if you're ready to embrace bold reform, to take the steps that are needed to make our entitlement programs permanently solvent, and grow the economy, then republicans are ready to work with you. because the time for pretending america's challenges can be solved with more of the same is over. over. the time has come to summon the political courage to move beyond the status quo. to put the tax hikes and the poll tested gimmicks aside and to do, finally, what must be done. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the time until 11:30 a.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees with senators respect

respect -- with senators permitted to speak therein for ten minutes with the majority controlling the first 30 minutes and the republicans controlling the second 30 minutes. the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. leahy: mr. president, i ask that the calling of the quorum be dispensed r officer

without objection. the senate will proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination, which the the clerk will report. the clerk: the judiciary, patty shwartz of new jersey to be judge for the third circuit. the presiding officer: there will 30b minutes of debate divided in the usually form. mr. leahy: i ask that my statement on behalf of patty shwartz of new jersey be included in the records a though read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy:man, i ask unanimous consent to speak on my time as though in morning business on legislative matter pending before the senate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president, four months after the horrific day in newtown where 20 children, six educators senselessly murdered, the senate is poised to make further progress toward the goal of reducing gun violence. that's a goal that all americans, no matter what your

political party, no matter what your philosophy, we should share this. i don't know how any parent, any grandparent, any relative ever gets over the horrific disaster of newtown. now, i do want to thank our ranking republican on the judiciary committee, senator grassley. he worked with us, he supported two of the measures favorably reported by the judiciary committee last month and -- and senator grassley helped make sure that we had both hearings that were substantive and that we had a schedule so we could vote. i commend senator collins, who's been my partner as we've moved forward with legislation to combat illegal gun trafficking and the straw purchasers who

obtain firearms legally but then provide them to criminals and gangs because they make so much money doing that. and we've been joined in that bipartisan efforts by senators durbin and gillibrand and clirk and klobuchar and -- kirk and klobuchar and franken, blumenthal, shaheen and kaine. our law is helping to give more bipartisan tools. our judiciary committee vote by the stop illegal trafficking in firearms, s. 54. and provisions are included in the safe community schools act, s. 649 that majority leader reid placed on the senate calendar and which he's now moved to proceed. straw purchasers get around the purpose of the background check system. straw purchasing of firearms is

then taken -- undertaken for just one reason, to get -- to have somebody who can legally buy a gun but to get those hands into the hands of somebody who's legally prohibited from having one. we know that many guns used in criminal activities are acquired through straw purchases. it was a straw purchaser who enabled the brutal murders of two brave firefighters in webster, new york, this past christmas eve. it was a straw purchaser who provided firearms to an individual who murdered a police officer in plymouth township, pennsylvania, last september. mr. president, is it any wonder that law enforcement across this country say, stop these straw purchasing, we're losing too many brave men and women in law enforcement? to say nothing about all the others killed by drug cartels and criminal cartels.

so we need a meaningful solution to the serious problem. we've included suggestions from senator gillibrand to go after those who traffic in firearms by wrongfully obtaining two or more firearms. we worked hard to develop effective, targeted legislation to help combat a serious problem. and doing it in a way that does no harm to the second amendment rights of law-abiding americans. it was an a.t.f. whistle-blower who testified last congress the existing firearm laws are toothless. we can create better law enforcement tools. that's what we're doing with the stop illegal trafficking in firearms act. i urge all senators to join with us and close this dangerous loophole in the law that mexican drug ca cartels and gangs and or criminals throughout our country have exploited for too long. and i want to recognize the dedication and leadership of senator collins of maine to

confront the issue of gun violence. she's not a member of the judiciary committee but she's been committed to finding commonsense solutions to the problems of gun violence. she's been dedicated in working with me to address the concerns of other senators. she and i share a deep respect for the second amendment but we also agree that our laws can be improved to give law enforcement officials the tools they need, and she's been a steadfast partner. our bill protects second amendment rights of lawful gun owners. at the same time, though, it cracks down on criminals and also cracks down on the people who assist criminals. it doesn't create a national firearms registry. it doesn't place additional burdens on law-abiding gun owners or purchasers. but it does send a very clear message that those who would buy a gun on behalf of a criminal or a member of a drug cartel or a domestic abuser would be held

accountable. that's why law enforcement say pass this bill, give those of us in law enforcement on the frontlines, give us the tools we need. now, some have expressed frustration about the level of prosecution under existing gun laws. some have suggested instead of making sensible changes to our public safety laws to prevent gun violence, federal law enforcement officials should focus exclusively on existing laws. now, i share some of that frustration, but it's not a valid excuse to do nothing. improvements in the enforcement of existing laws, efforts to give law enforcement officials better tools to do their jobs, these are not mutually exclusi exclusive. these are efforts that complement each other. a recent article in "the washington times" documented the gun prosecutions were in decline

beginning in the bush administration and suggests having a setting confirmed director of the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives would significantly help law enforcement. and i ask that a copy of the article be included in the record at the conclusion of my statement. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: as i said in january, america is looking to us for solutions for action, not sloganeering, demagoguery, partisanship. that's why it's particularly disappointing to hear some senators are pledging to prevent senate consideration of these proposals by filibustering. it's especially disappointing some who claim to support regular order, a transparent legislative process, according to that process know deference. you know, mr. president, there are only a hundred of us who have the privilege to serve at any given time in this wonderful

body. we represent 325 million americans. how can we talk to those americans and say, we won't even vote? we won't even vote? we won't even let it come to a vote? we don't have the guts to stand up and vote "yes" or "no." we want to vote "maybe." tell that to the families in newtown, connecticut. tell that to the families in aurora, colorado. tell that, that the people in the united states that said it are not willing sta understand up on -- willing to stand up and vote either "yes" or "no." they want to vote "maybe." mr. president, i'm a gun owner. i come from a family of gun owners. i've got the courage to stand here and vote. i want to vote. some will agree with my votes. some will disagree. but this senator feels it is part of his sworn duty to vot

vote -- vote "yes," vote "no." but vote. in the judiciary committee committee, we held three public hearings and four public markups on this legislation. we gave them full and fair consideration. we debated and considered amendments. democrats and republicans, the distinguished presiding officer is a member of that committee, he knows the debate we had and the votes we held. what a filibuster would do now is obstruct the open process of senate consideration of gun violence prevention legislation and it's wrong. it's absolutely wrong. it demeans the united states senate. and it turns our back on 32 325 million americans who expect better. so i've worked with senator collins and others to provide a real-world, commonsense solution to the problem of gun trafficking and straw purchasi

purchasing. it's the course i urge the senate to take. let's go forward, let's vote. vote "yes." vote "no." but vote. but vote. have the courage to vote. don't turn our back on the families who've suffered so mu much. mr. president, i ask my full statement be made part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president, i have eight unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent these requests be agreed to and printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: i ask unanimous consent that two intern, chelsea robago and ryan bendago be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the day. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum and -- oh, mr. president, i see the distinguished senator from iowa

on the floor and i yield the floor. mr. grassley: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: today the senate will consider the 10th judicial nomination this year with today's expected -- this year. with today's expected action, we will have confirmed four district -- no, four circuit and six district nominees. at this point in 2005 -- and that was the beginning of president bush's second term, comparable to what we're talking about for president obama -- the senate had confirmed zero judicial nominees. let me repeat. at this point in 2005, the senate had confirmed not ten, not four, not even one judicial nominee so that comes out to be zero. the quick pace of this year comes on top of a very productive 112th congress in which 111 judges were confirmed. last congress, we confirmed

more judges than any other congress going back to 20 years to the 103rd congress. despite this progress, and our continued cooperation, both with the president and senate democrats, we continue to hear unfounded criticism. for example, last week the white house spokesperson criticized the senate for what he characterized as arbitrary and unique delays in getting nominees confirmed. in a previous post on its web site, the white house complained about unprecedented delays in senate confirmation process. while acknowledging the senate had confirmed nine judicial nominees this year, the white house noted that -- quote -- "these nine judges waited 144 days for a floor vote compared to president bush's nominees who

waited an average of 34 days for a vote at this point in president bush's presidency." end of quote from the white house. as i stated, at the same point in 2005, none of president bush's nominees had been confirmed. not one. the purported statistic of the quote-unquote, average of 34 days, is without foundation. it took until june for president bush to reach ten judicial confirmations. president bush wouldn't have another lower court nomination approved by the senate until october of that year. but that delay in confirmations wasn't because there weren't nominees. by the beginning of april, 2005, 21 judicial nominations had been submitted to the united states senate. president bush's first four confirmations came in april,

2005. the first two of these nominees were nominated in september, 2004, and then consequently confirmed about six months later. the other two nominees waited much longer. robert conrad was first nominated april 28, 2003, to the western district of north carolina. he was confirmed a full two years later on april 28, 2005. not 34 days as the white house implies in its web site. his colleague, james c.dever iii nominated for the eastern district of north carolina waited eemg een longer. he was nominated may, 2002 and waited three years nearly before being confirmed on april 28, 2005. so this notion being expressed

by the white house not unprecedented -- of unprecedented and unique and arbitrary delays simply ignores the facts and in the process distorts history. in addition to the white house, we hear senate democrats grumbling about nominations and calls for changing the rules of the senate. of course, if they want to change the rules of the senate, they'd have to break the rules of the senate in order to change the rules of the senate. you know, really such intemperate comments utterly fail to recognize the work the senate has already accomplished in approving judges. the purported justification is the number of judges on the calendar. that number has to be -- happens to be 15 right now. where was there similar concern in april of 2004 when the number of nominees on the executive clen was nearly -- calendar was nearly double what it is today?

a second prong of this debate concerns the evacuation rate of the -- vacancy rate. blaming judicial vacancies on the senate confirmation process is unfounded and a distortion of the process. for a very simple commonsense rule, the vacancy rate is due not to the senate not confirming or acting, but the white house hasn't even sent these nominations to the united states senate. and how can we work on something when we don'tvene nominations from -- we don't even have nominations from the white house and yet people are explaining about it. and here's the statistics: presently 62 of the 87 vacancies or 71% of the vacancies have no nominee up here from the white house. for the 35 vacancies cat grazed as -- categorized as judicial mdges, only nine have nominees. even 74% of the judicial

emergency vacancies have no nominee and so to the white house, quit complaining or get the nominees up here and then you got a legitimacy for complaining. so i'd say a few words then about today's nominee. i do have concerns about this nomination, which have not been satisfied. unfortunately, i'm unable to support the nomination although i expect judge schwarz will be approved as u.s. circuit judge for the third circuit. i congratulate her on her confirmation and hope that she will per form her duties in a skilled manner, demonstrating judicial temperament with respect to to the law and the constitution. people need to know, then, why i'm voting the other way even though i expect her to be confirmed. this nomination started out troubled. not because of republican opposition but because of concerns expressed by home state

senators. originally judge schwarz's home state senator questioned her intellectual fitness for court, stating she -- quote -- "did not adequately demonstrate the breadth of knowledge of constitutional law and pivotal supreme court decisions." concerns were also expressed that she -- quote -- "misapplied the application of strict scrutiny versus rational basis review" -- end of quote and then further quote, "did not express substantive knowledge as to the scope of the rights of corporations under the constitution or jurisprudence on the constitutional limits of executive branch powers" -- end of quote. according to press reports, she specifically misapplied the law after speaking about citizens

united. that's a court case. there are -- to me these are pretty serious issues, so judge schwarz was asked about them during her hearing, specifically discussing the case citizens united. but she denied it happened, testifying instead that she did not discuss any specific cases, only general principles. however, in followup written questions for the record, judge schwarz changed her story and said that she and her home-state senator had discussed two specific cases, citizens united and roe v. wade. i find this after-the-fact dploash troubling. not only was it inconsistent with her hearing testimony, it prevented me and other senators from following up regarding what discussions she had regarding

citizens united and roe v. wade. because of the ambiguity surrounding these interviews and judge schwarz's inconsistent testimony, questions remain as to what understandings were reached and what assurances judge schwarz may have given to gain the support of home-state senators. unfortunately, her committee hearing failed to remove the doubts that were initially raised. again, these were raised by home-state senators. furthermore, because of her lack of candor at her hearing, i was unable to make the determination that she is prepared to be a circuit judge. i share the doubts raised regarding her limited knowledge of constitutional law, misapplication of standards of review, and inadequate understanding of substantive areas of law. accordingly, i cannot support the nomination, but -- so that the record is complete about her

vast background of experience, i'm going to put the rest of the statement in the record, and this is mostly biographical information. so i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: i ask unanimous consent to speak up to six minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i am pleased to rise in support of the confirmation of patty schwarz to the third circuit court of appeals, a nomination which has finally come to the floor and the time has come to confirm judge schwarz and i express my full support and urge my colleagues to do the same. i'm happy that we were able to work out the vote on this nominee without a cloture vote which is incredibly important. i want to refer to my distinguished colleague, the ranking member of the judiciary

committee, who mentioned home state senator and that happens to be me. and to clarify some issues. i've always taken the role of advice and consent for judicial nominations very seriously as i'm sure we all do. appointments to the federal bench are lifetime appointments, and the circuit court is often the last stop before the united states supreme court. and that makes that responsibility even great. very few americans if they appeal really get past the circuit court and get to a supreme court consideration. we know the process can be long and difficult. sometimes overly partisan on both sides, based on legitimate concerns and personal beliefs but in the end we always to look to confirm thest most best and most qualified individuals. we conduct a thorough, and we make our decisions and i have made mine about this nominee. i had the opportunity on more

than one occasion to discuss with the judge issues that i believe reflect the high standards to which a nominee should always be held. let me say that there is no understanding between this nominee and myself as to how she would rule in any given set of circumstances. there was a discussion about what the law is today in both those instances and i'm sure that the judge simply didn't recall the specifics of that at the time of the hearing but was forthright in coming back and say yeah, there were two cases. the simple discussion of what is supreme court decision, it is not in my mind is not only appropriate but at a circuit court level is more than desirable. and in the totality of our discussions, judge schwarz indicated to me the type of intellectual rigor, the knowledge that in fact

guarantees to me that she deserves the lifetime appointment that i expect the senate will confirm her to. the fact that i come to the floor today in full support of her confirmation speaks not only to her qualifications but to her character. and to her judicial temperament and suitability to serve on the third circuit court of appeals. aristotle said character may be the most effective means of persuasion and i can say having spent time meeting with judge schwarz i'm persuaded she is a person of high character and meets the highest standards for any nominee and i urge my colleagues to confirm this highly qualified woman who i know will serve honorably and serve well. judge patty schwarz is a proud new jerseyan. she has been 3457b8g straight judge for the district of judge since 2003, she has a decade basically of already clear service as a judge from which we can deduce the type of high standards we expect for a judge

of the circuit court. originally from patrioterson she graduated from rutgers with the highest honors. after college she went to the university of pennsylvania law school, edited the law review, named the outstanding woman law graduate. she has been an associate in philadelphia at pepper, hamilton and sheets, clerked in the district court for the district of new jersey and in 1989 joined the u.s. attorney's office for the district of new jersey. she rose to the chief of deputy position of the criminal division, serving as the executive assistant to the united states attorney. she has handled over 4,000 civil and criminal cases and since 2009 has been an adjunct professor at fordham's school of law. she is an the board of advisors for the state of new jersey, the directors for the magistrate judges aia